Ten minors arrested for arranging to meet people through dating apps and robbing them
The group acted with increasing violence and is attributed with nine attacks.
BarcelonaThe Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) have arrested 11 young people for forming a criminal group that robbed victims they met through dating apps. Ten of those arrested are minors, and the eleventh is 18 years old. In fact, according to police sources, most of those involved were about to turn 18. They are accused of nine assaults, three of which were never reported. They employed a modus operandi Similar, but the violence they used escalated.
After months of surveillance and investigation, and with authorization from the Juvenile Prosecutor's Office, the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) have confirmed that the detainees acted as a criminal group. They lured victims through various dating apps and arranged a meeting at night in a secluded location. On the appointed day and time, they appeared as a group and assaulted or intimidated the victims in order to steal their cell phones and credit cards. But the coercion didn't end there: they then extorted them for access codes and PINs to their bank accounts.
All those arrested face the aggravating circumstance of hate and discrimination due to the circumstances in which the assaults occurred and the selection of the victims. According to sources consulted by ARA, most of the victims were homosexual.
The investigation
The investigation began last March following two complaints in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, in which the victims had arranged dates through a dating app. Investigators were able to link these incidents to others previously reported in Badalona. In total, the participation of various members of the group in nine assaults has been confirmed, three of which went unreported. During the course of the investigation, three arrests were made last May. This latest operation, with a total of eleven arrests, corresponds to the final phase of the investigation, in which the perpetrators of the assaults, other minors who used the stolen bank cards in commercial establishments, and the receivers of the stolen goods—that is, people who profited by hiding or reselling them—have been identified.